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Bush balancing agenda with storm response
President Bush is balancing a harried schedule of diplomatic duties — from Iraq to China and the United Nations — while working to stay on top of hurricane recovery efforts that most Americans say should be his No. 1 priority. "I can do more than one thing at one time," the president assured Monday on the first of two planned visits this week to the Gulf Coast. He's fitting those in between meetings with world leaders who came to the United States for a gathering of the United Nations in New York, where he planned to publicly thank world leaders for their contributions to storm relief. As Bush was preparing to leave Tuesday for the United Nations, the White House announced that Bush will address the nation Thursday in his first prime-time speech since the Hurricane Katrina disaster. He will speak from Louisiana at 9 p.m. EDT as he makes his second visit to the Hurricane-ravaged area in less than a week. At the U.N., Bush was hosting Iraqi President Jalal Talabani for a closed-door meeting in the Oval Office, followed by a joint news conference in the East Room. The meeting comes as the Bush administration's top envoy in Iraq is warning that the U.S. is running out of patience with Syrian interference across the border and refusing to rule out military strikes or punishment from the United Nations in retaliation. But Americans seem to have shifted their focus away from Iraq and terrorist threats to problems at home. For the first time since the terrorist attacks on the U.S. four years ago, a majority of Americans responding to a poll by the Pew Research Center last week said it is more important for the president to focus on domestic policy than the war on terrorism. Another poll by Time magazine found six in 10 Americans think the U.S. should cut back spending on Iraq to help pay for the storm response, while about the same number favor a partial withdrawal of troops from Iraq to help with storm damage. The president sharply disputed suggestions on Monday that the military is stretched too thin to help Iraq and the Gulf Coast rebuild. "We've got plenty of troops to do both," Bush said after his first on-the-ground tour of cleanup efforts in the streets of New Orleans. "It is preposterous to claim that the engagement in Iraq meant there wasn't enough troops here, just pure and simple." Bush planned to return to the Gulf Coast on Thursday, and to return to the White House for more foreign affairs Friday, with Russian President Vladimir Putin scheduled to visit. The president said he'll be in "constant touch" with hurricane recovery teams during his two-day trip to the United Nations. Bush's busy schedule there includes one-on-one meetings with the leaders of China, Israel, Britain and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in addition to General Assembly sessions. Aides arranged to keep him informed of hurricane response efforts at his regular morning briefings. "By the time I'm finished (being) president, I hope you'll realize that the government can do more than one thing at one time and individuals in the government can," Bush told reporters Monday as he wrapped up a tour of New Orleans and Gulfport, Miss. "If I'm focusing on the hurricane, I've got the capacity to focus on foreign policy and vice versa." At the United Nations, the Bush administration is working to increase pressure on Syria, which the U.S. accuses of turning a blind eye to terror training camps on its soil. The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, refused Monday to rule out either a military strike against Syria or punishment through the United Nations. "Our patience is running out, the patience of Iraqis are running out. The time for decision ... has arrived for Damascus," Khalilzad said in a news conference in Washington, where he was accompanying Talabani.
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